


anything else that matters

by toaphrodite



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Good Parent Din Djarin, Slow Burn, din djarin is a reckless himbo and we live by that in this house, or well bounty to lover really, updates irregularly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:34:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28600761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toaphrodite/pseuds/toaphrodite
Summary: Melina Chalco is on the run, but so is a certain Mandalorian that drops into her life unexpectedly. They are both wanted, they are both worth a lot of credits, and they both refuse to concede defeat when backed into a corner. They fight to stay alive for different reasons, but then again, there is something about the child that keeps them both wanting to keep dodging lasers for as long as they can.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	anything else that matters

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I haven't written anything in a while, so excuse me if it's messy and short at first...

Her throat constricted in growing fear, fine hair falling from the cut of rough fabric holding it all up in a disheveled heap. From her peripheral vision she eyed the blue glow of polished beskar setting a threateningly slow pace through the dry and rapidly cooling desert. She squirmed against the handcuffs pacifying her, almost as efficiently as the blaster aimed just below her torso— presuming she was wanted _alive_.

"Wagg Cors send you?" The bounty hunter remained silent, tinted visor giving her no real acknowledgement of more so listening than pondering whether to reply. She knew most of it anyways— the bounty, the prize, the impatience of the man who would go the lenghts of hiring _a Mandalorian_ just to get his compensation due— so stalling was all she had left, given her current situation. 

"How much is he paying you? I'll pay you double if you let me go."

He scoffed at that, and she imagined him rolling his eyes under the helmet. "That's a lie."

Despite being held at gunpoint by an ancient warrior known for not screwing around, Melina couldn't help the grin; it's all teeth and chapped lips from days spent on the blazing dunes of Cantonica.

"And that's _rude_. Just because a lady isn't wearing her best gown doesn't mean she's skint. You don't know what sort of money I could have on me."

It seemed as if he wouldn't reply, and the pause stretched out for a few steps more before she turned her head forwards and let her gaze linger on the tips of her boots pressing into warm sand with each nerve wracking step closer to, what she only assumed, was going to be her _last_ noted location on the tracking fob.

"It's the money you stole from Cors that you plan on offering me." 

More of a statement than a question, and she gritted her teeth and craned her neck to look at him again. She was being observed, despite not seeing it on the indifference the armour offered, the slight motion of the helmet told her so. 

Wagg Cors was a tycoon at best, a fickle and vile Keteerian who sold himself as a businessman to any soul oblivious enough to believe him. He owned a large chain of famous casinos at Canto Bight, and a few of the bordellos were run under his allies as well. Melina despised him for other reasons though, reasons the Mandalorian wouldn't understand nor care about. Her tone came across as irritated even to her own ears.

"You really think that old fuck cares about a few rigged wins and cantocoins? The credits I got could _barely_ supply me with decent meals for a week."

"However small the amount... he wants you for them." He stated easily, apathetic to everything just as all bounty hunters were.

Melina snorted at that, sinking her nails into the calloused flesh of her palm to keep herself from speaking anything which might earn her a laser through the knee. _Wanted alive_ , she reminded herself, and damaged goods were still worthy _something_ to Cors if he could be the one to press the trigger against her skull.

A shadow sprung from the sand before them, and she stopped just long enough to squint at the form before the Mandalorian pressed the tip of his blaster to her lower back, firmly shoving her forward. She staggered and felt a tight grip on her bicep steering her upright. 

"Speeder," he informed her, modulated voice low and apprehensive just beside her left ear, "and you can either sit on it _or_ get dragged behind it. _Your_ pick, Chalco."

Ripping herself away from his grip as if his touch scorched her, Melina continued forward faster than before, and he followed suit with the same pace he set beforehand. 

"So he provided you with transport as well." Eyeing the orange vehicle once they got closer, she turned on her heel to face the Mandalorian for the first time since he desolated her campsite. 

Their fight was short lived, with Melina firing off lasers that bounced off his beskar like pebbles, and once he took that away from her it was only a matter of seconds before she was firm under his boot, a thin, sharp wire he shot from his gauntlet digging into the skin of her arms, blaster pointed midst her brows. She couldn't gauge the expression on his face, helmet impassive, body language wary and finger ready to press down if she dared to try anything. _It was unnerving._ Surrender was the only option, beside a poor death in the desert, sprawled on her back as a clumsy sand beetle. 

Silence settled in helpless agony, his aversion for small talk apparent since the beginning of their journey back. The horizon was catching a dull lilac, indicating that dawn was nearing faster than she expected. His form gathered more shape at the invasion of a more prominent light source, and Melina made out the tension of his hand clutching the blaster, which reached all the way up to his shoulders. He was _uncomfortable_ , or hesitant, she couldn't make it out with just his body language, but her green eyes remained firmly on the visor trained on her.

"If you were a better man under there, you would ask Cors where he got these fancy speeders from. And then," she swallowed a lump of an unfamiliar feeling clawing it's way up her throat, turning her voice brittle, " _then_ you would maybe find out a lot more than you bargained for. But I don't expect you to listen to a dead person walking— you bounty hunters _never_ do. A job is a job, and credit is credit."

She slumped on the speeder after that, eyes pressed onto the piling purple and amber of the sky. A numbness spread through her limbs, one she charted off as exhaustion and fatigue due to the lack of sleep. Along with the glint of beskar, the sky would be the last thing she would see today, and somehow the thought felt comforting in the loneliness of her past years, somehow the view held a _familiarity_ of a childhood she lost long ago.

A sudden tug on her arms shocked her out of reminiscing, and the Mandalorian pulled her down, clicking her handcuffs onto a back lock on the speeder for stability. She would be riding facing away from him— not that she expected him to let her hold onto _him_ for support, but somehow the idea of it seemed funny enough for a forced chuckle to escape her. He stopped short of getting on the speeder in order to tilt his head towards her, and Melina found a sense of desperation wash over her as she smiled up at him.

"Don't mind me. People tend to get sort of cooky when they're about to die."

Whatever noise he made, his modulator reproduced it as an irritated grunt before he finally started the engine. The speeder rumbled awake under her, and she barely caught his ' _hold on'_ over the momentum with which they shot forward, leaving a cloud of dust behind them. Particles of it caused a raspy cough to settle into her protesting lungs, and gribbed the warm metal with her thighs as best as she could to avoid slipping off.

She looked onward with her lungs still feeling some heavy fume nestle inside. A terrible thing to witness last, dawn on Cantonica, vermilion and reserved with the expanse of an unforgiving desert. The heat itself seemingly reached across the sky and caressed her cheek— either that, or tears streaked pity across her full cheeks. She welcomed the blissful ignorance along with the reoccurring numbness and closed her eyes.


End file.
